The Seduction Vow by Bonnie Dee Page B

better.”
    His gaze chilled her like blue ice. “Not
tonight,” he repeated. Then he turned and walked out of the
restroom.
    “ Ouch!” one of the women
exclaimed. “Somebody’s not gettin’ any loving tonight.”
    “ Quiet, bitch,” Tara
snapped at the stranger.
    Corinne tugged on Graci’s arm. “Come on.
Let’s go home.”
    “ I ruined it,” Graci
muttered. “A chance to be truly happy, and I kicked it to the
curb.”
    “ Shh. Calm down. It’s not
that bad. You’ll call him tomorrow and fix this,” Tara soothed as
she took Graci’s other arm. When one of the trio of women started
to laugh, Tara wagged a finger at her. “Shut it!”
     

Chapter Eleven
    The following day, Graci woke with a fuzzy
mouth, a pounding head, and a belly full of guilt and remorse.
Every time she remembered another thing she’d said to Big Hair, she
cringed, and recalling Neal’s angry eyes and sharp tone made her
want to curl up in bed and cry. But the scents of bacon and coffee
and Tara’s and Corinne’s voices beckoned her to the kitchen. She
dragged herself off the guest bed in Corinne’s apartment and
staggered into the bathroom. By the time she’d washed her face and
brushed her teeth, she felt a little more human.
    “ Hey,” Tara greeted
her.
    “ Want some bacon?” Corinne
asked.
    Surprisingly enough, she was starving. “A
whole plate full, please. I’m giving up drinking and taking up
eating instead.”
    She plopped down at the kitchen table, and in
seconds, a plate full of eggs, toast, and bacon appeared in front
of her. It was nice having friends to care for you after you’d
humiliated yourself in a public place once again.
    “ What’s on your agenda
today?” Tara asked. “Corinne and I thought maybe we could all go
roller blading like we used to.”
    “ Damage control,” Graci
answered. “I need to see Neal and apologize again, both to him and
his friend.”
    “ You sure she’s just a
friend? You did say she was macking on him.”
    “ No one says ‘macking’
anymore, Corinne,” Tara said, “And so what if he kissed her? It
wasn’t as if he was cheating on Graci. They weren’t
together.”
    “ It’s a big deal if he lied
about it.” Corinne slapped another pair of loaded plates on the
table and sat down.
    Cheating and lying. God, she never wanted to
suffer through that sort of betrayal again. Neal seemed to be
completely transparent and trustworthy. Her instinct told her he
was. But maybe she was a poor judge of character. She had been once
before. How could she ever completely trust a man, or her own
feelings again?
    “ I don’t believe Neal’s
like that.” Tara said what she’d been thinking. “I don’t know him
well, but I get nothing but good vibes from him.” She gestured
toward Graci with her fork. “And you’re not helping her by putting
doubts in her head.”
    Corinne frowned. “You’re
right. I’m sorry, Graci. I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Being
overprotective and interfering. Neal does seem like a nice guy. I’m sure
he’s one of the good ones.”
    It was exactly what she needed to calm her
nagging fears and doubts. “Thanks. I needed to hear that,
especially from you.”
    “ So you do what you have to
and get your man back,” Corinne said.
    Graci checked for new messages on her phone.
There were none.
    Sorry for last night. I’m
an idiot. Can we talk? She took a breath
before pressing Send.
    Because she couldn’t spend all day
obsessively checking for an answer, she went to the park with her
friends. She hadn’t been on roller blades in years, and it didn’t
take long for her legs to ache and her toes to go numb. She sat on
the nearest bench on the trail. “Go on ahead. I’ll wait here till
you loop around and come back.”
    She watched her friends disappear around the
next bend, Tara lithe and petite, Corinne solid and a little
chunky, both of them beautiful. There was no substitute for good
friends to keep a woman from wallowing in